In Seinfeld, George Constanza‘s fiancee Susan passed away after licking poisonous envelopes that George picked out for their wedding, and it was one of the more ridiculous TV deaths of all time.
Jason Alexander went on the Howard Stern radio show recently, and explained exactly why she was killed off. It turns out that the actress who played Susan, Heidi Swedberg, was comedically difficult to work with: “I couldn’t figure out how to play off of her. Her instincts for doing a scene and mine were always misfiring.”
“After every episode the four of us (Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Larry (David) would go and get a bite to eat. I kept saying, ‘I’m going out of my mind you guys, you’re killing me. I can’t understand how to play off this girl.’ Finally they do an episode where Elaine and Jerry have a lot of material with her, and they do the week and then we get to the restaurant afterwards and they go, ‘You know what? It’s fucking impossible!’ Julia actually said, ‘I know, don’t you just want to kill her?!’ And Larry went, ‘Ka-bang!’”
Alexander did go on to say that Swedberg was ‘the sweetest person’, but goddamn if that story isn’t the most ‘Seinfeld’ thing we’ve ever heard. You can almost visualise them sitting at Monk’s Cafe having that conversation. Maybe that should’ve been the finale.
Listen here:
via Soundcloud
